12 Stories from the 12 Days of Christmas

After soaking in two more days of Christmas break (thank you, Arctic Blast), I decided to come up with my top 12 stories from the 12 days of Christmas.  To be technical, these stories did not all come from December 25th- January 5th, but I thought you might get a little tired of something akin to:
"Awoke.  Did not change from pajamas.  Made something crafty while watching 1/2 of an entire TV show season.  Repeat."

But really, this was one of the most restful Christmas breaks I can remember having.  Lots of down time with my family, lots of sleep, lots of finished (fun) projects, with still enough checked off my to-do list to make me not feel like I wasted the whole break.  (Let's not mention that I probably got more done in the last two days than I had all of break...procrastination can be my best friend.)

In no particular order, here are 12 stories from my Christmas season:
(Note that picture taking was not on the 17 day agenda.  Forgive the few and poor shots.)

1. I received some lovely and thoughtful gifts from my students.  Here is a photo of some of them, and you might just catch a theme.  The owl coffee mug and owl candle holder and owl pencil pouch didn't make this particular picture, unfortunately.

2. I had a couple of occasions to sport an ugly Christmas sweater.  With joy, I rocked this teddy bear Christmas vest.  This particular wearing was also part of a white elephant gift exchange.  No one else seemed quite as happy with their presents as I did with my World Series Math game.  Yay for math facts!

3.  I wrote a lot of Christmas cards.  A lot.  And had to go to the store for more.  This stack (of about 100) was finished during a How I Met Your Mother marathon at S & S's house.  My puppy-nephew Zeke licked all the seals. (not really-don't get grossed out).

4.  On that note, I irrationally decided to still hand make my Christmas card this year.  However, I am really very happy with the result.

Here is the inside:

Before you ask, yes, the inside of the card is lined with a page from a Bible.  A real Bible.  And yes, I wrestled with Catholic guilt about using pages from a Bible. For over a month.  And maybe still a little bit now.
My rationalization?
-I saved the Bible from the garbage.
-The page is intact and readable, and therefore sharing the Gospel.  It couldn't do that from the garbage.
-It is pretty, much prettier than garbage.
-It spreads the real meaning of Christmas in a different way.  Unlike garbage.
-I am all about upcycling.
- Please don't tell the Pope.

5. Chex Mix is my favorite holiday food.  That and apple pie...and mashed potatoes.  But chex mix is one of my favorite things to snack on during holiday gatherings.  The night before the night before Christmas, I was packing everything I needed to take to my parents.  About midnight, I thought, I should make some chex mix!  Great idea!...but no way would I have all the ingredients...however, I dug in my cupboards and pantry and found enough of normal chex mix ingredients to pull it off.  I was so proud to be prepared for the holidays and to bring something else to share at the festivities.  I however, did not read labels very carefully.
Looks like chex mix.
Smells like chex mix.
But tastes like chex mix made with cinnamon flavored cereal.

I don't recommend amending your normal recipe to match mine.

6.  I mentioned a lot of crafting.  Emily and I  made these beauts the day after our TV day (NCIS marathon, no one allowed to change of our pajamas).  The boys were tired of being cooped up, so they went outside to shoot and blow up things. (You might think that I am joking.   I am not.)  The girls moved into the dining room (gasp! sitting at a table?)  and crafted.  For most of the day.  It was better than awesome.

If you were worried that we were missing prime uninterrupted TV season viewing during this time, you need not stress.  As soon as the boys were clear, we popped Call the Midwife into a laptop on the table and watched while painting.  I am not sure why the boys promptly went back out to shoot things when they saw what we were doing.

7. Just in case you are afraid that my eyes will fall out from all of that TV viewing, I made plenty of time for reading too.  Among the books, I re-read for the thirdish time The Book Thief.  I love it more and more each time.

8.  However, it is killing me that I didn't get to see the movie in theaters.  By the time the freedom of Christmas break rolled around, it wasn't in theaters around here anymore.  I will just have to wait until it is out on DVD and buy it.  There is not much difference between buying a movie ticket and the actual movie, anyways.

I did get to see this one, however, and it was great.  Elphaba, I mean, Elsa, I mean, Idina Menzel, made the music awesome.  It reminded me of the kind of Disney movies I remember from when I was little. And that made me love it.

9.  I got really dressed up for New Year's Eve.  And went to a real grown up party.  And maybe used a really too much amount of hairspray.

Hello, Shirley Temple.

10.  Just in case you were wondering, there were also more crafts.  Like this one:

11.  And this one.  If you think that I slacked on the crafting, just check out the goods available in our small time business.

I think that this creation might have been during the NCIS LA marathon, but I might be mistaken.

12.  I would be remiss to not document my view of the Arctic Blast, which imprisoned me (let's be honest, it was the best thing ever) in my apartment for two days.  Here is my view out of my frozen window:

Which really looked something like this nationwide:

And you can't tell me that it didn't make you think of this:

Seriously.



And now, 12 stories later, I am already on my way to failing in all of my goals for the first day of school.  They sounded something like this.

1. Get to bed before midnight.
2. Get to school early since you haven't been there in over two weeks and have no copies made and your lesson plans are all messed up because you had two frozen weather days and you know that the day is going to be a mess.
3. Try to not nap. Do not nap.
4. Survive.

Cross number 1 off the list.  I'll let you know how 2-4 go after tomorrow.


I hope that you and your family had a wonderful, restful, homebound, blessed Christmas season!